The Tully Progeny Test Centre is located in Kildare town, County Kildare. The centre currently runs a 120 day performance test for heifer and steer progeny off AI sires and a 90 day performance test for the bulls.
The following is an outline of the progeny timeline and the data that will be collected during their time in Tully and when they are slaughtered.
Acclimatisation period: (30 days)
All animals beginning the program undergo a 30 days acclimatisation period were they will also receive vaccinations for IBR, BVD, RSV, PI3, Blackleg & other clostridia diseases.
Genomics
All progeny are Genotyped
Diet
The heifers are fed 10kg concentrates and 3 kg hay fresh weight. The bulls are on ad-lib concentrates and hay. The steers are fed 8 kg concentrates and 3 kg hay freshweight. All intakes are recorded for individual animals.
Performance test measures (90 day testing period)
There is data being recorded on the animals on a daily basis in the form of Daily feed Intake. This combined with weight recording every 21 days enables a calculation of Average daily gain (g/day) and Feed conversion efficiency (DMI/ADG). Some animals are linear scored and all animals are scanned for muscle depth, fat depth, intramuscular fat (mm) and measured for scrotal circumference (cm).
Health & disease traits
Incidences of lameness, genetic defects, pneumonia and other illnesses are recorded.
Age at slaughter
The bulls are slaughtered between 15 and 18 months, while steers and heifers are slaughtered between 17 and 23 months of age.
Carcass measurements
- Meat quality
- Carcass weight, fat and conformation
- Primal yields
- British spec
- 19 different cuts
- pH
- Hourly and ultimate
- Meat eating quality
- Colour of loin
- Visual marbling of the loin
- Composition analysis
- Intramuscular fat %, protein % & moisture %
- Cook loss and shear force
- Sensory analysis
- NIRS spectra images